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o doubt many Strawberry Fielders were easily confused. The owner of this one was Peter Fancy. He had been born Peter Fanelli, but had legally taken his stage name not long after his first success as Prince Hal in Henry IV Part I. I was a Fancy too; the name was one of the few things of my father's I had kept.
I stopped at the door and let it look me over. "You're Jen," it said.
"Yes." I waited in vain for it to open or to say something else. "I'd like to see Mr. Fancy, please." The old man's house had worse manners than he did. "He knows I'm coming," I said. "I sent him several messages." Which he had never answered, but I didn't mention that.
"Just a minute," said the door. "She'll be right with you."
She? The idea that he might be with another woman now hadn't occurred to me. I'd lost track of my father a long time ago -- on purpose. The last time we'd actually visited overnight was when I was twenty. Mom gave me a ticket to Port Gemini where he was doing the Shakespeare in Space program. The orbital was great, but staying with him was like being under water. I think I must have held my breath for the entire week. After that there were a few, sporadic calls, a couple of awkward dinners -- all at his instigation. Then twenty-three years of nothing.
I never hated him, exactly. When he left, I just decided to show solidarity with mom and be done with him. If acting was more important than his family, then to hell with Peter Fancy. Mom was horrified when I told her how I felt. She cried and claimed the divorce was as much her fault as his. It was too much for me to handle; I was only eleven years old when they separated. I needed to be on someone's side and so I had chosen her. She never did stop trying to talk me into finding him again, even though after a while it only made me mad at her. For the past few years, she'd been warning me that I'd developed a warped view of men.
But she was a smart woman, my mom -- a winner. Sure, she'd had troubles, but she'd founded three co